Parental anxiety is nothing new. Parents worry about a myriad of dangers: potential abduction or abuse, academic performance and future success, peer pressure, and internet influence. Not to mention our insecurities about how well we instill the values and relationship skills that make pursuing happiness as possible as adults.

However, some particularly anxious parents live with fears, and even some level of panic daily. Often their anxiety isn’t really about their kids at all. Over time, their unaddressed anxiety can affect children in distinctly negative ways.

What about you? Are you worried that your anxiety might be impeding the healthy growth and development of your child?

You aren’t alone.

Scores of parents struggle to manage their own fears while raising kids. The key now is to be aware and willing to make the necessary changes.

Let’s Consider How Your Anxiety Might be a Problem for Your Child

Does your low tolerance for discomfort lead to overreaction and unintended harm?

Call this the “knee-jerk effect”. It happens when you become so uncomfortable or uncertain that you rush in to fix offending behavior, rescue your child, or govern your child’s environment. You do maintain control but your child loses their autonomy.

In effect, you allow your anxiety to overtake the higher priority: to teach your child how to safely, respectfully, and confidently navigate the world.

You likely feel convinced that you have your child’s best interests in mind. Yet, often, such overreaction and hyper involvement in soothing the discomfort of your child is actually an effort to soothe your own emotional upset.

Children need to fall and fail for the sake of their own resilience. Parents are better served by finding tools to manage their anxiety instead of indulging it under the guise of protective parenting. That way, the relationship becomes healthier and productive, less fraught with escalating levels of anxiety on both sides.

Anxious parents that swoop in, shielding and smothering their children on the playground, in the school cafeteria, and from the stands of their games send the message that the world is too scary for them to manage on their own.

Is your excessive concern about social acceptance creating a negative cycle of criticism and damaged self-confidence?

Anxiety about your child’s performance, appearance, or life potential often clashes with productive parenting in key ways. Worries about what teachers, coaches, and other parents think about your child can get in the way of more loving, supportive interactions on your part.

In fact, you may experience such deep anxiety that you find yourself being critical, punitive and inflexible with your child. Your anxiety may even start to shape how you seem them, casting a negative light on their relationship to you. The sense that they are a negative “reflection” on you could eventually result.

Do you find that your own fears rise to the surface when you see your child fall behind or not fit in? This can lead to highly personalized responses and negativity between you and your child.

Anxious parents that nitpick and criticize communicate to their child that they are not okay. Moreover, you seem to say that they will not be okay without the constant correction of their parents.

Unintentional though it may be, implying such a lack of confidence is demoralizing and can weaken your child’s self-esteem.Children are better served by a parent’s ability to step back and test their children’s ability to manage their overwhelm, persevere, and cope with circumstances as they are. When you can tap into your own sense of calm and maintain perspective, your child will learn to do the same. From there, their success will be their own and their frustrations can simply be the stepping stones they need to grow.

Do your worries about the unknown or unexpected lead to overstimulating your child?

Your child needs a safe calm place to reflect and process their experiences. They need time to do nothing and “be.” Downtime isn’t poor parenting it’s a lesson for you both. Learning to sit still, self-soothe, and practice being intentionally present is a vital life skill.

The last thing you want to do is foster the idea that constant stimulation is healthy or necessary for optimal safety, productivity or acceptance. To do so is a recipe for a stressed out and overwhelmed child, with little insight into his or her own need for self-care. Moreover, this can set the stage for a tense, emotional, and even explosive relationship between you.

Ultimately, You want the best for your child. The best way to encourage their happiness and confidence is to deal with your fear that they won’t be enough ( strong enough, important enough, well-liked enough, successful enough, etc) for you or others. That anxiety is yours and needn’t be your child’s to shoulder.

Anxious parents that overstimulate and overschedule, simply end up overwhelming their children. Healthy exposure and stimulation to opportunities are good… until your anxiety pushes too hard, expects too much, or shields them from certain character-building realities.

Now, it can be quite a challenge to tackle your own anxiety in order to parent differently. But don’t worry, you are not on your own.

Take the Next Best Step for You and Your Child

Carl Jung said it well:

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

Again, your anxious parenting is not just about your child. It is something happening inside you. You deserve the time and effort it takes to examine the root of your fear and worry. Your child can only benefit.

Use anxiousness as an opportunity to learn about yourself.

Make time to focus on yourself. Get curious and start asking questions about the roots of your anxiety.

• Are there childhood parts of your own that need time, and attention so that they may finally “grow up”?
• Do you have unresolved developmental issues you experienced around your own child’s age?

In truth, you may need the help of an objective and well-trained professional to help you identify issues and work through what it means to correct them. That’s perfectly okay. There is no shame in seeking help. In fact, it’s the mark of a loving parent.

Finally, understand that anxiety is one of our nation’s most common and treated mental health concerns. For help managing your own anxiety and tools to build a healthier relationship with your child, please contact me soon. I’m here to help create a freer more fulfilled life for you and your family.